


This is Going to Hurt

by limitedpractice



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Shattered Glass
Genre: Alternate Universe - Horror, Body Horror, Drama, Gen, Gore, Horror, Medical Procedures, Psychological Horror, Robots, Shattered Glass, but it's the SG universe and lots of things aren't right in it, despite what he's telling himself, robot gore, robot medical procedures, sg, shattered glass universe, there are some deviations from canon cybertronian anatomy in this, there's not much of this but I'm tagging it anyway, they're all sg versions except for pharma, who's not having a good time on the SG Lost Light and its crew of Autobots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-22 14:34:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21303674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/limitedpractice/pseuds/limitedpractice
Summary: In a harshly lit medical bay, on a dark ship crawling through space in an alternate universe, Pharma has a choice to make. He can choose to make the best of things by treating patients, ‘treating’ patients, following orders, not making himself a target of Rung’s Special Team and to rule in blissful, ignorant comfort over the tiny medical empire he’s been permitted to exist in. Or he can choose differently.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 26





	This is Going to Hurt

**Author's Note:**

> I got an idea about Pharma ending up in the SG universe that I couldn't get rid of and wanted to write a short thing about him and thought it would be a good chance to write something unsettling, since I love horror as well as comedy and self-insert stuff. But it turned into something much longer and different than what I’d planned. And there's still some gore in here but not too much - that's for another fic. This one is mostly Pharma’s fractured thoughts and I don’t know how well any of this works, but it was fun to try out writing in a different style and now it's done.  
Thank you for reading!

In a harshly lit medical bay, on a dark ship crawling through space in an alternate universe, Pharma has a choice to make.

He can choose to feel guilty.

He feels guilty whether he likes it or not when he sees Ambulon for the first time each day, but he knows that choosing how to react to something is what’s important. It’s one of the few things left that he has any control over here, which include choosing the colours in which to paint his frame.

And those colours are always a roar of red upon a field of pure white.

This choice is because he likes to stand out and be noticed and is not, it’s really not, because it’s a link to a previous life that he’s in perpetual low grade mourning for it’s not, that’s absurd, even though every time he sees his reflection his engine sputters silently and his wings feel cold and his face plates tighten as he remembers that he's here he's actually here he's--

Pharma is happy here. He’s delighted. Over the moon. This is where he was always meant to be. He is allowed – no, he is encouraged – to spend time with patients in ways that were once the preserve of his darkest fantasies. He is free. Unconstrained. Unbound. Praised. Admired. It’s just-- 

\--

\--

He may be the Chief Medical Officer aboard this version of the Lost Light, but he doesn’t have the authority to choose his staff. That power belongs to the Captains and to Rung. Pharma has free reign in how to control the medics assigned to him but that’s not the same thing at all he knows that. He knows that so many things aren’t the same any more.

Every day Pharma is the first to arrive in the medibay and the last to leave. This is because he needs the extra time to himself. 

Ambulon is the second to arrive and the second to leave. This is because he needs the extra time.

First Aid is the last to arrive and the first to leave. This is because of Rung's orders in the morning and Pharma's orders at night.

One day Pharma will bring up the topic of First Aid’s obsessive compulsive tendencies and ongoing treatment with the ship’s dark blue therapist, but Pharma saw Rung two days ago and is in no hurry to make another appointment with him.

There will be time to do so later. Lots of time. He’ll have time here because he’s not going anywhere; he’s not allowed to leave this deck of the ship; not allowed to know where the ship is flying to; he’s not allowed a measure of reality except what’s in his head and spark casing and he’s got time to think about that but he chooses not to. Time. There seems to be so much of it and yet not enough. Time to wonder what the time is. Time to wonder what he’s doing. How much time is left. Time Pharma Time. It’s time to stop thinking and it’s time to work.

The medibay doors slide open and Pharma sees a flash of red and white and purple at the edge of his vision. He grips the edge of the sink and looks down into the gaping black drainage hole and decides to choose irritation at having to work with him.

He chooses defensive irritation and guilt chooses him.

Tiny teeth lock onto his spark and bite down with the burning pain of a white flamed welding torch and he hates it, he’s ashamed of it, this guilt makes him feel sick to his spark but it lasts for just a fraction of a second, just a small slice of time, before he’s able to subdue it. But it’s still an unfortunate shock to the optics to see Ambulon looking the way he does, even though it’s not his fault. 

It’s not his fault. 

How could it be? This is Not. His. Universe. He didn’t do that to Ambulon his copy did, this universe’s lost Pharma did, so why is be being punished for something he didn’t do and why does he feel bad about it? What he did in his own universe is irrelevant, and it’s not right to be punished for something he doesn’t deserve. What he does deserve is a better start to the day than this. He deserves better. He makes himself better, he makes them both better and he will get better he will, he has to, he'll make sure of it and see what happens next.

A welcome burn of anger then flickers and flares and cleanses his system in a brief flash but doesn’t fade. It is smothered. It's extinguished by a cloying kiss of damp unease that twists itself around his spark like a betrayed lover who wants you to know they want to kill you. This feeling lasts a lot longer. It sometimes takes Pharma entire seconds to purge this corrupted code and recalibrate his emotional pathways so that he can look at each part of Ambulon without feeling like he wants to bow his head and vomit over his own feet.

He blames these temporary feelings on the fact that he’s travelled between universes and something in his mind came loose in transit and one day, one day soon, that cure for himself will be in his capable hands. 

Nothing vital came loose of course. The important parts of him are still here, still working well and ready to face the day with a smile. He just experiences a minor transcription hiccup in a non-vital part of his deep coding that needs a slight readjustment and then he’s as right as acid laced rain. Reminding himself that Ambulon’s bifurcation was not his fault is simply another act of hygienic self-care that needs to be attended to daily, like washing dried energon off of your plating or replacing a ventilation filter fan or touching up a paint chip with a fine tipped brush.

Because what happened to Ambulon wasn't his fault. Certainly not here and not in his universe, not really, not at all actually. Not when you boil things down to their black and hollow cores.

Tarn had poisoned him, Tyrest had experimented on him, First Aid had betrayed him and Ratchet had abandoned him. No-one had appreciated him, they’d all taken turns to judge him and blame him and hurt him but it was fine because they weren’t here now and he was. He’d come out on top and was living the good life now while they rotted away back there and it was all fine it was all just, fine.

“Good, Morning. Pharma.” Ambulon’s standard greeting is slurred. It is thick and spoken slowly. Every morning he says the exact same thing the exact same way.

Pharma nods shortly in response and makes the mistake of making eye contact with him.

One of Ambulon’s eyes has been plucked out. 

A hollow cavity of severed optic nerves looks at Pharma with the same intensity as his remaining yellow one does. Both circles are wide and gaping and look like they are screaming.

Pharma looks up this time instead of down, away from the sink and towards his operating table, and counts the number of metal instruments suspended above it. One, two, three all the way up to seventeen gleaming sharp objects are fresh and sparkling and waiting to be used and this really is a nice simple task to clean his mind from extraneous thoughts before he operates today and it’s a cleaning exercise, not a calming one, because his mind does not need settling it does not it does not it does not.

“How. Many today?” Ambulon asks about the number of patients scheduled for today in a slow dumb voice that sounds exhausted with the effort.

Pharma holds up a hand and inspects his slender fingers. They are as perfect now as they were the day he was forged. He wonders how other medics cope with their unforged sub-par hands. Because that’s what they are: sub-par. Some more so than others he’ll admit that, but when you get down to it, when you stop being politically correct and untruthful to yourself, it’s a well-known fact that forged medics are so much better than constructed cold facsimiles. He knows it’s true. MTO Ambulon knows it’s true. His Ratchet knows it’s true and even said so out loud to others, which made Pharma’s engines purr. Pharma wonders what Ratchet is doing now. He wonders if Ratchet, his Ratchet, not the off-brand copy that prowls around a lonely medical facility at the edge of a desert in this universe, is thinking about him. 

Pharma wonders if Rung or Rung’s team or someone looking to impress Rung tore Ambulon’s eye out today, because it was fine when Ambulon left the medibay last night and he certainly didn't do it, which could leave-

“Prepare for seven,” Pharma orders sharply, as if this should be obvious to the most basic simpleton. “And do try not to take all day with it. Primus may love a trier, but we both know I'm not him.”

Ambulon cocks his head to the side in agreement and Pharma winces in anticipation of what's coming next. Pharma forces himself not to close his eyes at what’s going to happen next, because he doesn’t want anyone to misconstrue the action and come to the conclusion that he’s anything less than professionally detached and more than slightly contemptuous with the calibre of staff that he’s been given. He knows the medibay is free of hidden cameras because he’s neutralized them, but he has a reputation to maintain, even if that reputation is to himself.

It would be pointless to react anyway, because this happens to Ambulon whether any of them like it or not and can’t yet be prevented.

And Pharma would still be able to hear it, that wet squelching sound like stepping in fresh mud, followed by a sickening set of pops as Ambulon’s weak facial filaments snap and break and the invisible fault line starting from the top of his head widens, and widens, and widens, and his facial plating peels away to each side like a softly rotting thing. It’s only when Ambulon’s head splits down to his neck that a keystone cable will snap taut with the weight of half a head collapsing to the side and prevent him from splitting all the way down.

...sssssssquelch

Pop. 

Pop. 

Pop pop. 

Pop pop pop

Pop pop pop pop pop pop 

_TWANG_

“Uhh.” Ambulon’s groan is pain and disgust and satisfaction, as if he’s popped a fluid filled abscess and the contents have burst everywhere. 

Well at least it’s done now. Better for it to happen sooner rather than later, since it always happens. If Pharma were superstitious or a conspiracy nut job, he’d say that Ambulon splits his head in half deliberately to annoy him. He knows that's not true and Ambulon can't help it, but it's so much easier to choose to believe it.

Because annoyance is what Pharma feels when it happens. Not disgust or sympathy and certainly not guilt and regret because guilt’s already had its turn, it’s the first thing that eats a miniscule piece of him every day so it’s definitely not that. It must be irritation. It is irritation. It will now take the Ward Manager longer than necessary to push his jaw up and hold the left side of his face to the right and wait for the microfilament fibres to spring out and wrap around the elongated cords, tighten them, and pull his face back together. Once that’s done there is a grace period not exceeding sixteen hours before the support fibres decay and his face is ready to fall apart again. In Pharma’s professional opinion, this universe’s copy of him did a mediocre job on Ambulon at best.

The medibay doors open and First Aid scuttles in.

Pharma’s second-in-command is painted dirty white-yellow and burnt maroon and is coated with delusions of grandeur. He reminds Pharma of a beetle that knows it’s up to no good but lacks the higher intelligence needed to mask its intentions. 

First Aid goes immediately to Ambulon. He reaches up to Ambulon’s head and carefully but insistently pulls it down until they are at eye level. With the surety of an experienced medic, First Aid twists and examines Ambulon’s head and face and neck, muttering to himself the entire time. Ambulon submits without a word and without a movement. A blob of energon bubbles up from his mouth and dribbles down his front. First Aid sighs softly at what he’s seeing. He shakes his head, stretches up onto his toes, holds Ambulon’s head tight and kisses the remaining eye. 

“Drain and clean the energon recycling line,” Pharma orders him loudly. “If you’ve got time to put your hands on your coworker then you’ve got time to put them in the drain.”

First Aid ignores him. He kisses Ambulon’s remaining eye again with soft cracked lips as if he’s treating the eye that’s truly suffering, and this confirms Pharma’s answer to his earlier unspoken question. 

“After you finish with the energon lines you can start on the drainage system underneath the sink,” Pharma continues. “It’s still clogged up with pieces of yesterday’s patient.” 

First Aid slowly peels himself away from Ambulon and slinks over to Pharma. A pale blue visor tilts up from his hunched over frame. 

“That’s custodial work,” First Aid says. “I’m not a service droid. I’m a medic. A doctor.”

“Are you now?” Pharma says slowly. “And is that what medics do around here? Pluck out eyes and mutilate their coworkers?”

First Aid clasps his blunt fingers together. “I was helping him. But then Rung called me and I got interrupted and you can’t say no to him. But I will help him again later because that’s what I do - I help people. I’m a medic. A doctor.”

A slow drip can be heard to the side of them, a soft plink plink plink of liquid hitting a pristine metal floor, and Pharma doesn’t have to turn his head to look to know that Ambulon is bleeding from another broken tube as he sways in place.

“Why?” Before he can help himself, Pharma has asked this question simply and openly and honestly. He shouldn’t be this interested in the lives of others and certainly shouldn't be this unguarded.

First Aid gives him a penetrating look. Something damaged is burning beneath his armour. “Because there are some things around here that he shouldn't have to see." 

“Follow my orders and get to work.”

“He deserves a better start to the day than the one he always gets.”

_“Now.”_

First Aid makes a soft clicking sound and scuttles away.

At his low points, when his spark is left exposed for a moment too long and he catches himself unaware, on those occasions that are increasing both in frequency and in length, Pharma wonders if this Ambulon and this First Aid are actually his. That all three of them have been transported to this shattered universe and have landed in hell together.

But that’s an idea only a crazy person would have and he’s not crazy. He’s intelligent, a realist, and Pharma has been reassured by each bot he’s asked that - no, wait, not reassured, he’s been told; informed; there’s nothing he needs to seek reassurance about that was just another slip of the mind that could happen to anyone so that’s fine he doesn’t have to worry he’s fine he’s - that they’ve known First Aid and Ambulon for years, for millions of them, and yes they’ve always been this way and why does he keep asking? Is he feeling sorry for them?

Pharma will answer that bot with a laugh. A soft, small, condescending puff of a laugh that doesn’t match what he knows is breeding behind his eyes. Pharma will also laugh at himself for indulging such nonsense and asking obvious questions about his colleagues, because he knows that if you can't laugh at yourself then you're in trouble. He knows that laughter is the best medicine. He laughs a long loud laugh every night when he’s alone in the medibay and turned the lights off and locked the doors.

He's not crazy. He's not a conspiracy theorist that’s had or deserves to get a lobotomy. He's not a Red Alert. This universe's Red Alert is an apathetic voyeur with eyes as dead as oil, and Pharma knows he’s not making an accurate comparison with him but he can’t help but think of his Red Alert. Some points of reference are like anchors no matter where his mind has been taken to, and he holds onto them tightly with eyes forced open.

First Aid is well into cleaning the energon lines now, his deft fingers working the tubes as if he could do this work in his sleep. Or as if he’s been at this chore for hours and has submitted to a mindless rhythm. But that can’t be right. Pharma only gave him the task seconds ago. Maybe it was actually minutes ago. Maybe. No. It wasn’t that long ago. And it definitely wasn’t hours. He doesn’t think it was hours…no. No not that long ago no. He hasn’t been here that long. Not that long. He has been here for far too long.

What has taken a long time is for Ambulon’s carved brain to formulate, process, and then execute the command to move. His head is the first thing to turn towards the preparation cabinet next to the operating table. His upper body follows second. Then his lower body. Then his legs. Each segment of him takes turns to twist and face a new direction. They always radiate a tangible air of surprise as they move, as if they’ve discovered there’s no law preventing them from moving but to do so is still a forbidden act.

Pharma has no reason to look away from the cybertronian moving towards him, so he doesn’t.

Ambulon does not walk steadily. 

To say that he walks at all is to be generous, but since Pharma isn’t selfish that’s the word he’s going to use. Walking. Ambulon is walking towards him. It’s also generous to say that the ex-Decepticon medic is alive and a worthwhile member of society but, again, Pharma is more generous than people realise. 

Ambulon’s two halves are gingerly held together by a crisscross of fraying wires, rusting cables and broken nanotubes. They’re too long or short to fully connect one half of him with the other, which allows you to see right through the middle of him.

His internal components have been ruined. The sharp edges of ruptured circuits, plating, and complex mechanical systems bristle down each length of him, charred and sharp and bleeding. They poke out like fossils half uncovered that should be buried again immediately.

Ambulon is coming undone at the seams. But those wires won’t let him fall apart. They connect his two halves with the power of spite and science and cruelty and compassion. 

But neither will those wires release him. Ambulon is not allowed to die. He’s not allowed to live. He exists in a perpetual state of uneven motion and incoherent thoughts. There is a pleading fire behind his eyes that is never extinguished and some days, most days, every day, Pharma understands why First Aid did what he did because he can’t bear to see it either.

Ambulon was butchered a long time ago and is not allowed back together. He’s forced to play the game and permitted to fail but that’s as far as he’ll ever go, despite what Rung says. 

“His two halves,” Rung had finally explained to Pharma two days ago, the therapist’s glasses sparkling and his fingers steepled, “Are symbolic of his split loyalties. He said he deserted those ‘Kind’ Decepticons to come and slum it with us ‘Evil’ Autobots because they were crueler than one might imagine, and he had scores to settle with them. In exchange for our firepower and engineering support he would help us win the war against them. He slowly fell to his knees in a gesture of supplication and held his arms out wide to show that he wasn’t a threat. Oh his paint sparkled under those harsh lights Pharma. He sparkled. Anyway, in a clear and steady voice he divulged the most _delicious_ Decepticon secrets and confidential passcodes to us as proof that he’d rejected them and chosen us. They were most detailed indeed. After they were verified via a secure frequency with the leadership team we thanked him, helped him to his feet, shook his hand, patted him on the back and shot him point blank in the face.”

Rung is the colour of a bruise, of a pulsing tumour, and his words are more cancerous than any disease Pharma has ever known. 

“But only in the neck! We didn’t _aim_ for the brain module. We didn’t mean for it to be damaged the way it did. We're not monsters!” Rung had chuckled and shaken his head at such a notion. “Accidents do happen, don’t they? Anyway, what we set out to do was to put a few well placed holes into the bottom of his face to neutralise him, right where your neck cables condense into the mandiblix plate. Just here, where I’m touching you. See? Right here? Right in there. Four little bullets right in there. And while the impacts may have blown off half his jaw and laid a bullet down to rest in the secondary cortex field of his brain module, at least he didn’t die. He still has some higher functions still intact. He knows his own name! He’s such a clever young man. And not all all of his brain module and surrounding components liquified into sludge and oozed out of his eyes and nose and mouth. Not all of it.”

Pharma had nodded at Rung’s genuine seriousness as he thought about what his Autobots would have done with a Decepticon defector.

Pharma thought about what he’d already done with a cybertronian who’d chosen to be better than what he’d been sentenced to.

"We had to take those shots,” Rung had explained as if it was obvious. “We had to slow him down before he had a chance to attack us. And because it wasn’t possible to repair any of the damage we didn’t even try to. It wouldn’t have been fair to subject poor Ambulon to treatment that wouldn’t work, would it?”

A direct shot to the brain module is often fatal but not always. The secondary cortex field has a Labolex Level forcefield surrounding it and is studded with self-replicating cellular hubs. The forcefield will absorb an incredible amount of shock if a foreign object breaches the primary forcefield, and the hubs will print out stored copies of any material that was damaged and replicate its code. They work in tandem as a last resort to protect and heal the brain module, so it’s always worth trying to stabilise the forcefield and boost the hubs’ replicating power even for the most severe of injuries. It’s always worth trying.

And a common misunderstanding about neck cables is that they’re sensitive. They are not. They are thick insulators and sturdy supports coated in a minimum layer of nerve receptors. In addition to connecting the head to the upper body and permitting it a range of motion depending on each bot’s frame, neck cables encase sensitive wires, computational pathways and the primary energon line that connects the brain module to the transformation cog to the spark. They have a closed-system self-repair package for minor injuries deep coded into them, and are built to protect no matter what frame a bot has. They are built to last. 

If neck cables receive substantial injuries, they can be fortified and rewound in a matter of moments with no long term degradation to the patient’s scope of movement or pain receptors. It’s a simple operation that’s taught to first year medical students. 

It would have taken a medic seventeen seconds to exhaust attempts to stabilise Ambulon's brain module and a further three minutes to repair his bullet riddled neck.

Rung had looked at Pharma expectantly and waited for an answer. 

_It wouldn’t have been fair to subject poor Ambulon to treatment that wouldn’t work, would it?_

Pharma hadn’t shaken his head in agreement or challenged Rung’s lies. He hadn’t asked him why Ambulon hadn’t been taken to a medic, or why standard procedure was to shoot him at all, or why he was here or why he was here. 

The master medic in Pharma had reared up with contempt and fought and lost a battle with his self-preservation, and the choice to move or speak was taken away from him. Rung had smiled such a terrible smile of pride that his universe crossing curiosity had passed such an easy test.

Pharma chooses to look back on himself with pride at how he behaved there. If he can override how he instinctively feels when he thinks back to how he behaved in Rung’s office, then he can choose how he should feel when he sees Ambulon each day. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing.

“You’d think that given the severity of his injuries Ambulon’s face would still be a gaping hole and his mind a disgusting mess,” Rung had continued as he leant forward in his chair, his hands gripping the armrests. “But it’s not. Our Pharma ‘fixed’ him. He couldn’t help himself, despite knowing that it would be obvious to everyone that he’d done so. It's quite unbelievable that he earned three degrees, was awarded a medal for Loyalty to the Cause and was at one point the toast of the entire ship."

Pharma still wonders if those three degrees were the same ones he’d worked so hard to earn.

“Pharma explained to us that he’d installed the stability wafer as an ongoing punishment for the spy,” Rung had said. “He’d tried to make that lie real by coyly admitting it was also for his personal amusement, which is why he had hidden it and didn’t tell anyone about it. He said he knew the wafer's support fibers were on a sixteen-hour delay and not a permanent one, and that it was fun to watch Ambulon’s face crumble every day. But it wasn’t possible for Pharma to know that the tech was on a sixteen hour timer. Its inventor didn’t even know it. Brainstorm thought it would only last for four hours and was truly delighted at the discovery it lasted for longer. He was the first to volunteer to be part of my special team that was tasked with getting the truth out of Pharma. Which we did. Which we did well. Oh we did it so well Pharma, so so well. After eleven hours Pharma finally broke.”

Before Pharma could decide how he should react to that, Rung’s voice had collapsed into a disgusted whisper. “He’d done it as an act of kindness. Our other you was a traitor. A defective anomaly,” Rung had spat. “He rebelled against our laws and beliefs and secretly repaired Ambulon and fixed him as best he could. The pervert probably held his hand and kissed his brow as he stitched his face back together and embedded the stability wafer’s root programming into what remained of his core processors.” 

Pharma had said nothing.

Rung’s voice had then returned to normal, like a total eclipse leaving the sun. “Poor Ambulon. Pharma just made things worse for him, didn’t he? And such cruel, reckless insubordination could not be left unchecked, could it?” 

Pharma had tasted rust at the back of his mouth and shook his head. 

Rung had smiled and nodded his head up and down quickly. “Then you’ll be pleased to hear that it wasn’t!”

Rung had sat back in his seat and crossed his legs as he got himself comfortable. “During our eleven hour...chat with Pharma, we became worried that he had pro-Decepticon leanings and might be a spy himself. After his…treatment with the nails and hammers and pneumatic drills we knew he wouldn’t be a physical threat to the crew any more, but he might still have information that could hurt people. So we went looking. But despite our talented mnemosurgeon working so very hard to retrieve that information through his memories, we couldn’t get them back. 

"We think he poisoned himself with whiteout code that he also stole from our weapons engineer. Or maybe his Decepticon master gave him something. Maybe he found another way to butcher himself. He was very imaginative you know, just like you are. A few people suggested he was telling the truth and had never been a spy in the first place, but we couldn't take that chance. Anyway. He worked so very hard for us, our special surgeon, the way he slid his needles into Pharma’s neck and eyes to bravely explore that degenerate's mind. He deserved his time off after working so hard let me tell you! He said he didn’t mind the long hours and the terrible crunching sounds and being sprayed with energon when Pharma tried to claw his own face off because he was doing it for the Cause. He was doing it for the safety of others. And if he happened to enjoy his work - if he took pleasure from doing a job well done - that can’t possibly be discouraged, can it Pharma?”

Pharma had used a supreme amount of effort to shake his head again. 

“Exactly. I knew you would understand. You, our new CEO, who puts patients out of their misery in the most imaginative of ways. You were quite a find! Not to mention your skill in keeping them alive, I suppose that’s good too, but- but the main thing is that you understand us. You understand why you - I mean the previous you - had to be punished for keeping secrets. For not being who he should have been.”

Pharma had taken one, two, five long seconds to remind himself not to shake his head again. He had nodded once. 

Rung had sighed a sigh of satisfaction and loss and continued with his story. “Once we realised that Ambulon’s face could be held together and his brain wasn’t completely offline, and that Pharma’s treachery couldn’t be undone because despite being a traitor he was a genius when it came to medical coding, the best we've ever had, no-one can better him no-one, we had choices to make. There are always choices to make. We couldn’t let such an act go unpunished of course, so we treated Pharma accordingly. He wasn’t built for space flight and didn’t use his wings much anyway and to this day Pharma, to this very day, I don’t know why he _wailed_ so much when we went to work on them. You can’t miss what you never use, can you?”

Rung had sighed his sigh again, but this time for longer. 

“And as for Ambulon, well. The easiest option would have been to kill him. But doing the easy thing doesn’t always pay off in the long run, does it? Maybe there’s still some Decepticon intelligence in his abused head that we can discover.”

A corner of Rung’s mouth had curled up into the start of a secret smile that was meant to be discovered. “We have a special team injecting deep coding algorithms into him. And it’s a labour intensive process, let me tell you! All that scanning and soldering to get those wiggling little nanites crawling over everything. And the _smell_. Oh that smell of burnt metal and something _stagnant_ as Ambulon is peeled back and investigated and consumed by skittering feet before they melt into him. That’s why the coding team need a good rest to refresh themselves after working on him. And because his treatment sometimes take longer than expected each morning - when he sometimes screams and puts up a fight - it means he might be late into work some days. So don’t be too hard on him will you?”

“So that’s why he...lives,” Pharma had said slowly, as he carefully didn't say what he already knew. “Because of your...generosity.”

“And optimism!” Rung had exclaimed brightly. “There’s no life without hope, is there? And that hope extends to some of our more...compassionate crewmembers, who still think it’s possible that Ambulon will convert to the Autobot cause and shake off his Decepticon shackles. He does shake a lot anyway! The way he shivers uncontrollably and vomits up the contents of his energon and waste tanks when he’s finished with his nanite injection and is undergoing electrical stimulation treatment. I’ve had to replace so many broken and stained pieces of furniture I’m nearly broke myself! I’m not rich! But I didn’t go into this profession for the money. And what about you Pharma? Are you running up high medical bills because you have to replace equipment that’s been ruined because of him? Or do you…_not_ treat him according to my recommendations? Do you not use the modified clamps and custom built pliers I prescribed for him? Did you not understand the written instructions left for you the moment you arrived here? Do you think you know better than me?”

Pharma had paused, knowing that whatever he said wouldn’t be the right answer. He knew the game. He still knows it. He’s constantly forced to play this game and is permitted to fail but that’s as far as he’ll ever go, despite what Rung wants him to believe. 

“For a ship and crew of this calibre I wouldn’t have thought you’d be so penny pinching,” Pharma had said in a forced tone of brevity, as he’d sat back and laced his hands behind his head. “But I’ll try harder not to go through a new set of restraints every other day with him. I know what it’s like when Magnus gets on your case about budgets and paperwork.”

Pharma and Rung had exchanged empty smiles, and Pharma had felt a small part of him power down into darkness for good. Another dead circuit board slotted neatly into the stack of defunct parts that were trapped inside him and growing heavier each day.

Pharma had stood up abruptly, out of fear that he’d never be able to do so again and because he couldn’t bear to look into the black holes that Rung’s glasses had dissolved into.

“Well I’d best be going,” Pharma had said, as he looked towards the door. “Plenty to be getting on with. Thank you so much for your time today doctor - I appreciate you finally sharing the history of my staff with me. The more you know the better. And, say, if you’re free after your last appointment tonight, perhaps we can get a drink together?” 

Pharma had already known that Rung would be attending a leadership council meeting that evening and that it wouldn't end until the early morning. 

“Thank you for the offer but I’m afraid I’m busy,” Rung had said, in a tone that Pharma couldn’t decipher as genuine or not. “Another time perhaps?”

“Another time indeed.”

Pharma had left Rung’s office and felt his entire frame burn and crackle and long for something he couldn't put a name to. 

“One or three?”

“....”

“One or three?”

“Huh?”

“One. Or. Three?”

“I- what? What?"

“One or three doctor Pharma, one or three. One. Or. Three. One or three one or three which one is it WHICH ONE IS IT?”

Pharma jerks so violently he tears a support strut on his wing.

“What the hell are you talking about?” he snaps at First Aid, as he slams a hand down onto the injured site of his wing quicker than he’d intended. He hisses at the extra pain but doesn’t remove his hand because he can’t risk losing even this tiny bit of protection. Unlike a neck cable a wing can’t be easily fixed if it’s damaged. Rung has never shared the details of this Pharma’s wing removal, and he hopes he never will.

First Aid hums in irritation. “One or three shots. The number of shots. How many? Do you know? Do you know what a shot is? Do you know what we’re doing? Do you even know your own name?”

Just like his First Aid, this one doesn’t hold back when he’s annoyed. He’s sharp and fierce and straight to the point. 

Pharma has to spend a long few seconds remembering that he’s here in the medibay, not in Rung’s office, and that First Aid has finished with his cleaning task and is asking how many doses of localised pain receptor shutdown he should prepare for the first patient. 

“Three,” Pharma says confidently, even though he can’t remember who the patient is and what they’re going to do to him.

First Aid looks at him critically. 

“Ambulon’s assisting us today, which means he’s going to hold things. Which means he’s going to drop them. Which means unless you want to delay the operation by preparing another shot to replace the one he’s spilled all over the floor, you’re going to prepare all three now.”

First Aid’s critical look grows deeper. He knows that Pharma doesn’t know. 

And that’s when the memories wake up in Pharma’s head and flick back on. The first patient only needs one shot of pain receptor shutdown before the operation because of their frame and- and it won’t be possible for Ambulon to drop it because it’s not an injection. It’s a mesh patch that sticks to the outer armour layer, and he can’t ruin it because even if he does drop it it’s a mesh patch, it will float harmlessly to the floor and can be picked up and used as normal, it’s-

“That’s-” Pharma starts to quickly explain but- 

“Not a problem,” First Aid interrupts, his visor burning a blue so neon it’s otherworldly. “Coming right up. Three shots to prepare. I understand Pharma. I understand.” He scuttles away to prepare them and Pharma feels sick. 

The patient is late. He was scheduled for his operation eleven minutes ago and still hasn’t arrived. 

Probably still fighting against his restraints, Pharma thinks irritably to himself. The security team probably ‘forgot’ to strap him down and ‘forgot’ to do a dozen other things. They’re delaying his treatment for their own amusement and wasting my time and I just want this over with. I want to get to work. That’s what I want. That’s why I want it to start now. Please let it start now.

“It will start soon,” First Aid says, making Pharma jump. First Aid is behind him and to the side, his face up next to Pharma’s ear. There is a strange heat radiating off his frame.

“Quiet,” Pharma snaps immediately, his mind racing as he tries to remember if he’d spoken anything out loud or if First Aid is a mind reader or if he’s just made things worse for himself and First Aid was once again talking about something he wasn’t paying attention to. Something he couldn’t pay attention to, because every day his thoughts become a little more untethered, a little more liquified. His mind is leaking at the seams.

“You-” Pharma starts and then stops. He’s not sure what to say that could make things better for him. He wants to know why the patient is taking so long and why the lights are so bright today and why he wants to collapse to his knees and mop up the pool of energon spreading around Ambulon’s feet but he won’t get answers to any of them if he focuses on them he doesn't want to focus on them and-

Pharma grabs onto the mental support pillars he's entrenched for himself to stop his spark from stuttering. He silently offers up gratitude that he hammered them into place the moment he arrived and that he maintains them every day without fail, because without them he would be truly lost.

“Has he told you yet?” First Aid asks, as he looks at Pharma looking at Ambulon. “Rung? Has he told you?”

Pharma tries and fails to look away from Ambulon’s two halves gently rocking back and forth at different speeds. One is moving faster than the other, like two pendulums working out of sync.

“Told me what?” Pharma says.

“Why Ambulon was cut in half. Why you cut him in half.”

Pharma’s eyes slide towards First Aid as the rest of him remains motionless. “What do you-...no. No he hasn’t.”

“They wanted to damage his head and face which is why they shot him in the neck,” First Aid says, tapping his own neck cables in the place the bullets would have entered. “Just minor damage, that’s all. It’s standard procedure you know. To ruin an enemy spy while keeping his brain module and t-cog and spark intact in case they're needed later on. But the guards got a bit... carried away when they shot Ambulon. They put so many bullets in him they ruined his mind even if they didn't mean to. Not that they cared. And not that they were ever punished. And not that I'm criticizing them I'm not I’m not I'm just- the brain module is a wonderful thing, isn't it? A medical marvel. It deserves better. We deserve better. And then you came along.”

Pharma turns his entire head towards First Aid. 

“Well you were already here of course, the real you, the our you. Not you you. My Pharma. My Pharma fixed Ambulon as best he could and tried to make him whole again. He shouldn’t have done that. The tech he stole only works for sixteen hours before it fails and then Ambulon comes apart again. He has to endure it all over again. And then Pharma was punished. He deserved it. And then Pharma punished himself. He deserved that as well.”

First Aid’s voice has fallen quieter and quieter, and Pharma has to increase his audial input to hear him. First Aid’s voice is also slower, as if he’s hesitant to continue and hesitant to remember. As if he’s hesitant that he said anything in sympathy for Ambulon and is hesitant to say anything bad about his Pharma. 

“He couldn’t stand it,” First Aid continues. “My Pharma. Every day he’d see Ambulon and be reminded of his failure. He couldn’t put him back together and couldn’t convince anyone that he’d done it as a punishment and not an act of kindness. He couldn’t stand the way everyone treated him and couldn’t stand what he’d become. He hated himself. I saw it every day in his eyes. And then one day I saw them in the sink.”

Pharma takes a few seconds to process this.

“It was considerate of him to cut his own eyes out while leaning over the sink because that part was easier for me to clean up.”

First Aid steps over to a stack of cabinets and pulls out a tray of surgical equipment. He lifts up a secret compartment at the bottom of one and holds up a scalpel. 

“This is what he used first,” First Aid says. “I pried it out of his hand and cleaned it and now I keep it with the others. I have...many special things us medics have used over the years. Do you want to see them?”

Just like his First Aid, this one has a morbid collection. 

“...not right now.”

First Aid bobs his head in understanding. He runs a finger along the blunt edge of the scalpel and mutters something before he returns it to the tray, aligning it perfectly with the instrument next to it. He doesn’t put the cover fully back on the hidden compartment he’s built for himself. He leaves his collection partly open.

“Wait,” Pharma says suddenly. “What do you mean by that was what he used first?"

First Aid clasps his hands together behind his back, as if this is the only way to stop himself from touching his relics of the past. “...even though Pharma removed his eyes he must have still been able to see Ambulon. You know, in his mind. He couldn’t stop seeing him. And he could still hear him of course - he could still hear the dripping and whimpering and scuffling as Ambulon does his best to live. He wouldn’t be difficult to locate and corner. Maybe Pharma felt bad for what he’d done to Ambulon. Or for what he couldn’t do for him. Maybe he hated betraying his own people. Maybe he just hated himself that much.”

First Aid has a far away look on his face, as if he's rewinding himself back to a point in history he wasn’t a part of but can see so clearly it’s as if he was. “After I'd left work one night Pharma took a chainsaw and carved Ambulon down the middle.”

There is silence in the medibay.

“He must have stolen it from the weapons vault, because the medical saws we have aren’t big enough to carve someone in two with just one stroke like that. They aren’t. Pharma they aren’t. That’s not what they’re for. They’re made to help people not to cut them in half and I- I don't know why Pharma did it and why he didn’t talk to me and why he stole so many things from us and-”

First Aid whirrs and clanks and recomposes himself. “After he carved Ambulon in half he turned the chainsaw on himself. He sat down in that chair over there, the one you always sit in, and plunged it into his spark. There was so much mess everywhere. There was just so much Pharma. So much of him. It was all liquid and bright and shining and it mixed in with Ambulon's and spread everywhere.”

The silence in the medibay deepens and deepens and deepens.

“You found him,” Pharma eventually says.

First Aid nods. 

“...you found them both.”

First Aid waits a second before nodding again. There is something damaged burning beneath his armour. 

“There was so much mess to clean up,” First Aid says with the mechanical repetition of a sparkless automaton. “But that wasn’t a job for a service droid. It was a job for a medic. They were my medics. I’m a medic. A doctor. I help people.”

Pharma looks back at Ambulon. An eye the colour of a cursed gold coin looks back at him.

“Yes,” he tells First Aid, his eyes glued onto Ambulon’s leaking innards. He is an open wound that will never heal. “You do help people. And so do I.”

He is an open wound that needs to be cauterized once and for all.

First Aid tilts his head to the side. “But Ambulon has been helped. I helped him. And Pharma didn't kill him - he curved around his brain module and spark and avoided severing the primary energon line. He did a poor job."

Pharma wonders if this Pharma deliberately botched his act of mercy so that Ambulon wouldn’t die. Was he really that incompetent, even without his eyes? Was he really that cruel? Was he really that mad? 

Did he really care that much?

"The captains agreed with Rung that because Ambulon survived the chainsaw attack he deserved to live," First Aid continues. "'We're not monsters' is what they said. And they're not. They're the good guys. We're all the good guys here.”

First Aid twists his fingers together so hard that one of them creaks.

"You quote them well," Pharma says. "As you should."

"There are many things that I should do."

"I agree.”

Another heavy silence drapes itself over them.

“Did you know,” First Aid says slowly, as if he’s testing dangerous waters by skimming its surface with his fingertips, “that the 16 hour stability wafer Pharma inserted had merged with Ambulon's core resilience coding and spread throughout his frame?”

Pharma doesn’t answer.

“He may have been a traitor, but he was also an amazing doctor. And a genius medical coder, the best we've ever known. He did things we're not able to replicate or remove.”

Pharma tilts his head. He already knows this thanks to Rung.

Encouraged, First Aid dips his hand into the water lower. “Ambulon’s entire body should split in half every 16 hours, not just his head. He should come fully apart. He should make a horrible mess but he doesn’t. He doesn’t. And that’s because of the keystone cable at the bottom of his neck. The cable prevents his face from falling even further apart, but it also prevents the rest of him from bursting open. From the neck down he’s still held together by his original wires and tubes and some hope and a lot of spite and none of them break Pharma, none of them fail. They look weak and spindly but they hold firm. Ambulon doesn’t come all the way apart and he...he doesn’t suffer excruciating pain any more than he has to.”

Once again Pharma doesn’t respond.

First Aid’s committed himself now, and submerges himself completely. “That keystone cable is a standard part of Ambulon’s frame, there’s nothing unusual about him having it, most of us do in one form or another but- but his injuries are so bad, they’re so chronic, that it’s not possible for a keystone cable to prevent a total frame collapse once it’s been set in motion, especially if it’s already been shot and severed and not fixed immediately and- and the only way it can bring a cascading frame collapse to a sudden halt is if it’s been modified and…and I think that’s what happened. I think that’s what my Pharma did.”

Pharma nods his head slowly, slowly, because he’s expected to respond to this and he needs time but not too much time to. “…yes. His guilt propelled him into doing something he both did and didn’t want to do. I would have thought Rung and the others would be suspicious that only Ambulon’s head splits in half after his chainsaw treatment, but I guess they don’t know any better. Medicine is a complex and ever changing field, so you can’t blame them for not understanding the intricacies of how a body functions in all its magnificence and why are you looking at me like that?”

First Aid twists his fingers together even harder. “…because the cable can’t be modified permanently like that with just one procedure. That’s not how that neck cable works, you know that. They’re built to last, yes, but- but a keystone cable needs ongoing maintenance to support a body the way Ambulon’s one does. My Pharma must have bolstered it daily by covering it with a fresh coat of crystalizing cylinders without anyone knowing. Or maybe he used a different technique, I don’t know. He made sure I didn’t know. There’s a lot of things I don’t know. But I do know that he killed himself. And I know that you arrived the next day. I know that Ambulon still doesn’t fall apart and that his keystone cable is still being maintained and...and someone is doing it. I know that someone is still looking after him.”

Pharma turns slowly away.

“And I’m not allowed to touch him,” First Aid says in a rush. “So it’s not me. Rung said I couldn’t touch him and I don’t, I won’t disobey him because he told me what he’d do to me if I did and that means that you’ve been doing it. You’ve been helping Ambulon since the moment you arrived here because you feel guilty. You want to help him but you also want to help yourself, and that’s because you’ve done some terrible _terrible_ things in your lifetime Pharma.”

Pharma whirls around, his huge wings unfurling and his engine turbines whining. “You don’t know what I’ve done! You don’t know anything about me, so don’t dare to presume that you do.”

First Aid holds his ground against Pharma looming over him. “You’ve been helping him,” he says stubbornly. “You’re a genius doctor just like Pharma was, and you’ve been caring for Ambulon daily. That’s why you always make me leave the medibay first – so that you can bolster his keystone cable and pick up from where Pharma left off. And you don’t do what Rung tells you to do. I’ve seen the clamps and pliers he gave you to treat Ambulon with – they’re hidden under the tall cabinet and coated in dust.”

Pharma opens his mouth to argue back but nothing comes out. His body has made the choice for him not to lie any more. It feels terrifying and horribly freeing.

First Aid nods his head indulgently, as if he understands completely. He looks vulnerable and hopeful and insufferably smug.

“For someone who’s terrified of disobeying Rung’s order not to touch Ambulon,” Pharma says slowly, his spark pulsing in his chest, “Your lips get awfully close to his face most days. And your fingers somehow find their way into his optical socket to remove his eye whenever you feel like it. And that’s because you…how did you describe your actions again? Ah yes – it’s because you were ‘helping him.’”

First Aid’s frame stills in complete and utter horror.

“‘I was helping him.’” Pharma quotes First Aid’s earlier words back to him. “‘But then Rung called me and I got interrupted and you can’t say no to him. But I will help him again later because that’s what I do.’”

First Aid’s legs threaten to buckle.

“‘I help people. I’m a medic. A doctor.’”

“Oh, please,” First Aid whispers in desperation.

“You can’t prove anything you accuse me of doing. Before you’re halfway to Rung’s office the clamps and pliers will be stained with his rust, certain programs will have been wiped from the computer, and Ambulon will be an oozing pile of tubes and circuits dumped at the foot of your workstation for you to clean up.”

“No, I-”

“And when you get to Rung you can tell him anything you like, but you’ll be gambling on who he chooses to believe. Because do you know what I’ll tell him? I’ll tell him that _you’re_ the one who’s openly helping Ambulon. You’re the one who admitted that you defy Rung’s orders and _you’re_ the one rebelling against your own people’s beliefs like a traitor.”

“Oh, no, I-”

“Stop whimpering. And don’t you dare make a mess here, because I’m not cleaning up another one.”

Pharma folds his wings back and powers his turbine down. He looks over to Ambulon, who’s pretending not to understand what’s going on. “I have my hands full already.”

Ambulon takes a few steps towards Pharma. Sometimes, like now, the angle and torque of his step pushes one of his sides up against the other, and jagged metal rubs against cracked components before it falls away and is pulled up short with a jerk. 

Ambulon continues walking and Pharma continues letting him. Blocks of red and white metal bob and sway with an unnatural slow motion fluidity, as his two halves lean and twist and fail to move in sync. The wires pull tight when one half slips and prevents it from going too far. They hold him as steady as possible and do not break.

Ambulon comes face to face with Pharma and stops. His lopsided gash of a mouth is whole. He opens it to say something, but is interrupted by the medibay doors sliding open. The first patient has finally arrived. 

“Get to work,” Pharma says. “Both of you. Now.”

“But what about-” First Aid starts to ask in a panic.

“Now. Get Pipes prepared and ready for surgery. You’re a doctor, aren’t you? Someone who helps people?”

First Aid droops his head and follows Pharma’s orders in silence.

For the next fifteen and a half hours all three of them work without a break. Every surgery is a success and every patient has been transferred back to their room or cell.

“Finally,” Pharma tells his staff, as he finishes disinfecting his hands from the last patient. “Good work. I didn’t think that last one would make it, but neither of you messed up and he pulled through nicely. Anyway. You can leave now First Aid. And make sure your spend your time recharging and not reading those stupid Wreckers datalogs again, because you’re back here in six hours and I don’t want you falling asleep on the job again.”

“Pharma about what I said-” First Aid snaps at the chance to finally say what’s been on his tormented mind for half a day but Pharma brutally interrupts him with

“Did I not make myself clear? Get out. Now.”

First Aid panics silently as he finishes tidying away. He goes towards the doorway without looking back but as the doors slide open and he steps through he can’t stop himself from spinning back around.

“Are you going to tell him?” he blurts out. “Rung? Are you going to tell him what I- what we- what I…I…the things he’ll do if he finds out Pharma, you have no idea oh you have no idea you have no idea…”

Muted medical emergency lights throb softly around the perimeter of the doorway First Aid is standing in the middle of. It’s standard procedure for when the doors are held open by an unexpected object that remains stationary in between them.

Some of the lights are red, the colour of rules and crisis.

“I will answer any of Rung’s questions,” Pharma says carefully, as his spark and brain work in perfect tandem to choose how he behaves next, “In a way I deem appropriate. If he asks me them that is. If he chooses not to ask me a certain question then I would not presume to divert the course of his conversation by bringing a subject up myself. I am careful with my words. As careful as you are with your collection.”

Some of the lights are yellow, the colour of caution.

First Aid looks at the standard medical cabinet and his secret layer that's closed and hidden within it. He looks back at Pharma, who is resolute.

“I know my place,” Pharma says.

First Aid’s visor flashes. “Here,” he says slowly, “Your place is here. With Ambulon. With all the people that need you.”

“Rung can’t get a truth out of you if you’ve never been exposed to it. And he’ll have to follow formal procedure if he wants to ‘treat’ one of his own people in the way he did to me, which will take time and give you the chance to-…in the way he did to the former me. The traitor me. Not you. You are nothing of that kind.”

First Aid bows his head. He is illuminated by strobing lights.

“Go and recharge. You don’t want to be a part of this.”

After a few long seconds that are some of the lightest and warmest that Pharma has experienced since arriving here, First Aid straightens up, nods slowly, turns around and leaves. The medibay doors close behind him. Their emergency lights switch off and a small bright light above the entry panel inside the medibay flicks on instead.

This light is green, the colour of life.

Pharma looks at Ambulon, who looks dead on his feet. He allows himself a wry smile at the thought.

“Lay down,” Pharma orders Ambulon. “No not on the seat, on the operating table. Yes, the one with your special straps. Just like you do every day, come on. I haven’t got long.”

It’s now been fifteen hours and fifty-three minutes since Ambulon’s head last split in half.

“And neither do you.”

Ambulon lays down reluctantly, even though he knows what’s coming. 

He’s still worried I’m who I appear to be, Pharma thinks to himself, as he straps Ambulon’s limbs into position on the bed and locks them down tightly. He’s still worried that I’m going to suddenly tell him this was part of my evil plan all along and that he needs to make his peace with Primus while he still has the chance to.

He’s still worried that I’m going to transform my arm into a chainsaw and finish the job I started, and as his energon soaks into it and floods my mouth I will laugh and laugh and laugh.

“Mad Doctor Pharma was another life,” Pharma says quietly, as he connects diode pads to Ambulon’s neck and head and chest. “Another version of me.”

Pharma connects the other end of the pads into a small intake port on the life-support computer and powers up a modified program. A technical diagram of Ambulon’s keystone cable materializes onto the screen. Pharma adjusts a sensor cord on Ambulon’s neck without taking his eyes off the screen’s neon green readouts. Columns of percentages and decimals and algebraic equations start to pour down it like rain, and overlay the 3D diagram that’s slowly rotating in the background.

“Now you know what’s coming next, so do me a favour and don’t start screaming. I have a splitting headache today.”

Pharma turns a dial on the medical equipment he’s re-purposed all the way up to high, disengages the automatic shutdown override, and instructs it to deliver a shock.

Ambulon’s ruined body convulses immediately as the electrical charge smacks into him. His back arches up from the table and his restraints bite into his arms and legs as he squeezes one eye shut and bites down on his lip and doesn’t scream and doesn’t scream and doesn’t scream and doesn’t scream.

Pharma can only imagine what it must feel like, to have a never breaking wave of white hot pain rolling through your system like that. He hopes he never will.

Ambulon moans, unable to hold an expression of his suffering back any longer. He’s a curved bridge over the table, body straining against the restraints, plating and armour and wires taut with unbearable tension and raw inner mechanical workings exposed and leaking.

“Just a few more seconds left,” Pharma tells Ambulon with mild impatience, his eyes fixed resolutely on the screen and not on the body pleading for release next to him. “You know this is necessary. You know that his nanites have to be flushed out first.”

The machine does its work and pumps Ambulon’s neural nets with electrical frequencies that are an antidote to the deep coding particles Rung injects him with every morning. Pharma can’t subject Ambulon to this treatment for too long, because his body simply can’t take much of it before it would fall apart. But his system has to be wiped clean of contaminants before his keystone cable can be worked on.

“There,” Pharma finally says, as a number flashes up on the screen. “All done.” He turns the dial down to _off_ and taps in a command to open up a new program.

Ambulon collapses back down onto the table. Thin wisps of grey smoke stream out of his mouth and eye sockets.

“I see nothing started on fire today,” Pharma observes matter of factly as he finally looks over at his patient. “That will save me a few minutes from having to offline and reprogram the fire alarm logs.”

In a harshly lit medical bay, on a dark ship crawling through space in an alternate universe, Pharma has a choice to make.

He can choose to worry. He can fixate on when, not if, Rung and his Special Team will discover the truth and pay him a visit in the early hours of the morning when he’s in deep recharge. He can wonder if Rung will wake him up first, and the last thing he’ll ever see will be a dark blue face and a smile that looks like death. Maybe Rung will give the orders to start when Pharma’s still recharging, and he won’t see anything ever again as his pain sensors explode. Maybe Rung will treat him in front of the entire crew. Maybe he’ll treat him in private.

Pharma injects Ambulon with a heavily modified cocktail of crystallized cylinders. The microscopic structures will latch onto the keystone cable and to its nearest neighbour. Once every one is in place they’ll unfurl and form an unbroken layer that will sink into the cable's mechanics down to its atomic layer.

Pharma can choose to stop. He can reassure himself that he’s done more than he ever should have with Ambulon, and now is the time to stop. What he’s doing is too risky with too little reward and this is not his Ambulon, and not his problem. It’s not his mess to clean up.

The layer of flattened cylinders sink into Ambulon’s neck cord like a soothing balm that’s applied to blistered skin and absorbed in dehydrated desperation. This is what this universe’s Pharma did for him. This is how he prevented Ambulon’s body from splitting completely apart from the neck down. Pharma knew this from the first time he ran a deep scan on Ambulon and discovered traces of cylinder that hadn’t fully dissolved. And like a lot of things he did, this Pharma did a poor job.

Pharma also knows that prevention is better than cure. He’s always known this.

Which is why he improved upon his predecessor’s work.

Pharma can choose to brag. He can make a name for himself here by telling the crew that he successfully developed a new technique for this fine crew by experimenting on Ambulon. He can tell an awestruck crowd how he strengthened the cylinders’ structures from localised sustaining to widespread emergent and infused them with the ability to heal and replicate CNA. He can explain to any doubters that it was an easy task that didn’t take long and he is, quite frankly, surprised no-one else here has discovered and documented and utilized this method because by Primus it was easy to do. And when most of them look at him blankly he’ll smile indulgently and explain that his cylinders don’t just sustain Ambulon’s keystone cable for sixteen hours – they heal his entire body.

Ambulon’s full body healing happens slowly, one digit at a time. On some days the numbers don’t move at all. On these days Ambulon will silently ask Pharma if it’s all going to be worth it, to which Pharma will silently reply no it probably isn’t but I still want to try and you still want me to so that’s what we’re going to do.

Ambulon’s eye rolls towards the screen to look at his stuttering readouts and statistics. They have stubbornly refused to improve for the last three days:

structural helm integrity 16 hours  
brain module functionality 58%  
energon saturation 36%  
t-cog configuration 5%  
exterior integrity 15%  
Full Frame Restoration 3%

Pharma can choose to feel guilty. He’s inflicting pain on someone with no guarantee of success despite them consenting and despite it being the right thing to do. But Pharma has experience with feeling bad for doing the right thing, and knows how to push himself and shut parts of himself down to get it done. Pharma knows that even if his treatment does work perfectly and Ambulon comes fully back together – in body, spark and mind – if he survives and starts to live again, he’ll be noticed. They both will. They’ll both be found out and punished and those consequences are too horrific to dwell on so Pharma doesn’t.

Guilt takes a miniscule bite out of him, and he chooses to banish it to where it belongs.

Pharma knows that he’s selfish. He knows what he’s doing is propelled by self-serving motivations. And despite his ruined self, Ambulon also knows why Pharma is doing this. He knows, and forgives, and consents, and also chooses to view the future in tunnel vision with its multitude of horrific branched possibilities blacked away safely out of sight.

“Hold on,” Pharma says, as he prepares to ionize the cylinder concoction with another electrical charge.

Pharma chooses to put one of his hands on the table next to where one of Ambulon’s is, as a sharply modified electrical current loops itself around the grimy keystone cable to power the cylinders that have coated it and the ones that have spread throughout his body.

Pharma can choose to imagine. Maybe nearer the time of Ambulon’s restoration he can succeed where his copy failed, and convince Rung that he did what he did for the Greater Autobot Good. Maybe Rung will believe him. Maybe Rung will underestimate him. Maybe Rung will underestimate them both, and Ambulon will have to time to escape when he’s cured and put back together before Rung can break him again. Maybe First Aid or another secret sympathizer will hide him and help him and run interference on Rung’s Team to buy him time to steal a shuttle and fly away somewhere, anywhere, away from this ship of death and temptation to a place where nothing is expected of him but to live.

Pharma knows the chances of these things happening are slim to non-existent, but look at where he is now. Look at what he became before he came here. So much of the impossible is possible so why not that? Why not give Ambulon a fighting chance to live again? Why not give himself a fighting chance to live again?

The monitor bleeps. And bleeps. And bleeps.

There are three bleeps and three eyes glued to the screen in anticipation and fear and Ambulon lifts one finger and slides it onto one of Pharma’s.

Pharma chooses not to look at Ambulon as he lifts his hand and shakes that trembling finger off.

The monitor has stopped bleeping. The program is powering down. The treatment is complete. The final numbers are settling and-

-and Pharma chooses to take Ambulon’s entire hand in his own, not just a finger, not just a single part of him to hold in a protective grip as they stare at the numbers that are holding bright and green and steady and they’re holding steady, they’re not moving, they’re real and this is what Ambulon is now, this is what Pharma has created this is why he’s here:

structural helm integrity 16.2 hours  
brain module functionality 60%  
energon saturation 39%  
t-cog configuration 6%  
exterior integrity 17%  
Full Frame Restoration 8%

Pharma chooses to focus on the bright numbers burning echoes of themselves into his eyes, and on the feeling of a rough hand squeezing his in both fear that he’s getting better and in a spark deep gesture of affection and gratitude that he’s getting better.

Pharma chooses to remind himself that he’s a doctor, a medic, and that he helps people, and that’s who he’s always been and nothing and no-one will take that away from him, not this ship, not this crew, not this universe, not his previous one, not actions outside his sphere of influence or those within it not now not ever, not; ever, because this moment right now is going to be copied and stored and used to replace the dead and dying ones he’s infected himself with and all day every day Pharma chooses to make the decision to heal himself as well as others and it's hard and lonely and painful but he does it, he chooses to do the right thing, he continues to choose to do the right thing because he has to try. Pharma makes a daily choice not to be like his old or shattered self but to be who he is now, and to choose not to take the easy way out. Pharma chooses to be better.

Pharma chooses hope.


End file.
